Ashes

[Webbo]

Yes Root is under immense pressure as you said, mainly from the UK press. The racism scandal at Yorkshire that has cost Vaughan his commentary job and now all the coaching staff being fired has also been a huge pressure. It’s a horrible situation and the gutter press were desperate to drag Root in despite Rafiq clearly stating he was not involved and was always a good guy to him as young players together. On top of his he has literally carried the team alone with his batting In the last 12 months. All will take its toll eventually I am sad to say. 

[Ken Gargett]

10 minutes ago, Webbo said:

Yes Root is under immense pressure as you said, mainly from the UK press. The racism scandal at Yorkshire that has cost Vaughan his commentary job and now all the coaching staff being fired has also been a huge pressure. It’s a horrible situation and the gutter press were desperate to drag Root in despite Rafiq clearly stating he was not involved and was always a good guy to him as young players together. On top of his he has literally carried the team alone with his batting In the last 12 months. All will take its toll eventually I am sad to say. 

i think it is more than showing already. his failure with the bat, although that can happen. the bowling decisions. leach? but most of all, a moment in the last session yesterday when head got a five, thanks to an overthrow to the boundary. as ponting pointed out, it was really poor by root. he only had to move two yards to be the back up to the keeper but never moved an inch. a schoolboy would have done better. 

[Ken Gargett]

burns was very lucky to avoid a first over pair.

i think this next innings will say a lot about root. if he can get it together and make a ton or even better, a game saving innings, that will say he is travelling better than i think he is. but if he fails again, i think he is in real trouble. 

[Webbo]

Burns does not have the technique to be a test opener. Falling across his stumps all the time and ending up playing French cricket. He scores plenty at county level where he can get away with this but he needs to be side on and can’t do it. Root will score runs this series. He’s too good a player not to. 

[Ken Gargett]

11 minutes ago, Webbo said:

Burns does not have the technique to be a test opener. Falling across his stumps all the time and ending up playing French cricket. He scores plenty at county level where he can get away with this but he needs to be side on and can’t do it. Root will score runs this series. He’s too good a player not to. 

interesting stat on our commentary. burns has opened over 260 times in his career. this was only the 4th time he has not faced the first ball. perhaps some nerves. 

[Ken Gargett]

have to give root some serious credit for the way he is batting now. i thought he might have cracked under the pressure but he has come out and been batting superbly. just as well for england and the series as otherwise, it could have been a disaster. now we have an ashes series. 

[Webbo]

I’m Roots biggest fan so really pleased for him but not surprised as regardless of his captaincy skills (and he actually has a very good record) the one thing that for sure is he can bat. Glad he is finally showing it down under. Malan batted well too but my concern is that for the last 3-4 years no one other than Root can score big. That’s what was impressive about Head, 150 from a middle order bat is way better than 50 more than a hundred if you get my drift. I would be playing Bairstow who has shown he can do it. 

Another 2 - 3 sessions batting and its series on. 

[Ken Gargett]

13 hours ago, Webbo said:

I’m Roots biggest fan so really pleased for him but not surprised as regardless of his captaincy skills (and he actually has a very good record) the one thing that for sure is he can bat. Glad he is finally showing it down under. Malan batted well too but my concern is that for the last 3-4 years no one other than Root can score big. That’s what was impressive about Head, 150 from a middle order bat is way better than 50 more than a hundred if you get my drift. I would be playing Bairstow who has shown he can do it. 

Another 2 - 3 sessions batting and its series on. 

england get 200 ahead, and that looks very likely, and suddenly they become huge favourites. we'd be under massive pressure. harris is hopeless. warner might not be able to bat. can't expect head to repeat the dose. green on a king pair. smith did not look as comfortable as in past days. we'd be very nervous. who would have thought? why test cricket is so amazing, though i may not have that view if we stuff this. 

[Webbo]

On 12/10/2021 at 8:58 AM, Webbo said:

Another 2 - 3 sessions batting and its series on. 

Oh bollocks 🤬

[Ken Gargett]

4 hours ago, Webbo said:

Oh bollocks 🤬

i think that sums it up from an england perspective. 

will be extremely hard for england now but not out of it. very possible neither hazlewood nor warner fit for adelaide. harris should not be there. we have a few chinks in the armour.

mind you, i think england has some gaping hole. do they stick with burns or bring in crawley? i think hameed will get runs. root obviously class but how much does all this, plus not getting to the ton yet again in australia, play with his head? i reckon he will be sacrificing virgins all week, praying to lose the toss for every other test (the aussies will be doing the same, but praying you guys select leach again). pope played such a poor shot in the second. buttler is a one day player who will get runs some occasions but not all and a bloke who has been shoehorned into test keeping. that will come unstuck at some stage. stokes played really poorly, whatever the reason. his bowling was very poor and his footwork when batting is shot. could be he just needs some cricket but for all the fuss, and yes, he can occasionally play a blinder, the hype is not backed up by the figures. he averages mid 30s against us (and in general) but under 30 in australia. his bowling average against us and in general and out here is slightly higher 30s (37 plus). all the talk about him being the next sobers or kailis or botham, so far nothing like. i know broad bowls very well to lefties and we have a heap of them but he and anderson, while it made no sense to bring them and not play them in brizzy, have never been great out here and are now four years older. robinson was good and wood was way faster than i realised. they'll both get wickets. 

long way to go but i know where i'd put my money. 

[Webbo]

and here is the problem…. I think the Aussie bowling is probably better, certainly in your own back yard. England have had no warm up of proper preparation but even so if you do t score runs you will win the occasional game at best. White ball cricket has been the priority here and look at the result. Very sad for a fan of test cricket. 

[Webbo]

Plus one of the greatest/worst influences on world cricket was that freak Gilchrist. Since him being the best wicket keeper does not mean you will be picked unless you are also a world class bat, that's why we have Butler who is at best average at test level in both disciplines.  And he also walked... bastard must have some Yorkshire ancestry.

[Ken Gargett]

9 minutes ago, Webbo said:

Plus one of the greatest/worst influences on world cricket was that freak Gilchrist. Since him being the best wicket keeper does not mean you will be picked unless you are also a world class bat, that's why we have Butler who is at best average at test level in both disciplines.  And he also walked... bastard must have some Yorkshire ancestry.

gilchrist even walked once when not out! as an old keeper (although an opener as well), i hate the best keeper not being picked. gilchrist is, so far, the only exception i'd make, because he could change a game and win it. but it has been happening for years. strong argument that marsh got the nod ahead of john maclean based on better batting, many years ago. 

your list of batsmen shows the huge problem you guys have. and malan is only over 30 because of one innings (the last one). otherwise, he is 27. how root goes for the rest of the series remains to be seen. he is statistically at his worst against us and especially downunder. he has to overcome that or you guys are in strife. i think hameed will end this series with an enhanced average. stokes might. pope should but... 

sibley and crawley also should but they may never get the chance. 

[Webbo]

On 12/12/2021 at 12:32 AM, Ken Gargett said:

i hate the best keeper not being picked.

Today showed why I hate it too. Butler needs to score a shitload of runs (when it matters too) to make up for his drops. sill looking forward to @JohnS being right and your batting collapses but not holding my breath.

[JohnS]

7 hours ago, Webbo said:

Today showed why I hate it too. Butler needs to score a shitload of runs (when it matters too) to make up for his drops. sill looking forward to @JohnS being right and your batting collapses but not holding my breath.

Sport, in general, is a game about momemtum. Michael Hussey devoted many pages of his autobiography to this theme. It's not always an even contest. The key is to take advantage of things going your way and then to 'arrest' things when they are not. England will have periods of play when they will dominate in this Ashes Series, and I don't doubt that it will happen, the key will be whether they can sustain that momentum.

[Ken Gargett]

have not been able to see much of the first two days but enjoying today, even if england are getting runs. they won't get better conditions to bat than these.

john's thoughts on momentum are spot on. had that storm not come along last night - i did see that bit - then hard to imagine that we would not have got perhaps 2-3 more. including root with luck. had that happened then who knows how they would have/could have backed up today. hard to see england winning this one at this stage but they are looking like they will at least have every chance to get a draw and if they bat well enough, then they might get a win. 

[Ken Gargett]

have to say that root, bar that first innings in brizzy, is batting superbly. still can't get over the ton and almost a shame to see him go now, such is his class. 

how about green? no question he is more a batting allrounder than a bowling one, though you'd not know it from 0 and 2, but he has three wickets in test cricket - two of them joe root! 

[JohnS]

Ricky Ponting did an excellent analysis on why Cameron Green is currently struggling for Cricket.com.au a few days ago. Basically, he is too open in his stance to prevent lbws and hence he's not currently covering off-stump. Anyone who doesn't know cricket will struggle with what that all means but honestly people like Ricky Ponting (and Shane Warne) have excellent cricket brains, as we say.

Check it out, it's a short two minute video...

https://www.cricket.com.au/video/ricky-ponting-cameron-green-technique-analysis-off-stump-line-adelaide-ashes-test/2021-12-18

 

[Ken Gargett]

1 hour ago, JohnS said:

Ricky Ponting did an excellent analysis on why Cameron Green is currently struggling for Cricket.com.au a few days ago. Basically, he is too open in his stance to prevent lbws and hence he's not currently covering off-stump. Anyone who doesn't know cricket will struggle with what that all means but honestly people like Ricky Ponting (and Shane Warne) have excellent cricket brains, as we say.

Check it out, it's a short two minute video...

https://www.cricket.com.au/video/ricky-ponting-cameron-green-technique-analysis-off-stump-line-adelaide-ashes-test/2021-12-18

 

ponting is proving to be an excellent commentator and analyst. for me, the best since chappell. warne has an excellent cricket brain though otherwise it is a wonder he remembers to breathe. the problem with him is that he does like the old in-joke and the back-when-i-was, although now that slater is gone - best thing ever - he seems to indulge in that far less. now he likes to come up with extreme ideas because they get coverage. he does not care that people think them silly. he just cares that he is in the spotlight. 

[JohnS]

Your comments on Warne are spot on. He does put it 'out there', at times. And he loves the spotlight, yes.

[JohnS]

Two points to draw out in preparation for today's 5th day in the Second Test at Adelaide...

1. We discussed previously the idea of 'momentum' in sports and we saw exactly just that with the exceptional English bowling at the beginning of the fourth day. The addition of some rolling of the pitch assisted with the pronounced seam movement which contributed to 3 Australian wickets falling in 12 overs for 10 runs. Similarly, we saw the Indians all out for 36 last year in similar conditions. The difference today was that Travis Head arrested the momentum by counter-attacking and Marnus Labuschagne found a way to survive the onslaught and then make runs later.
2. I was mentored in my cricket journey by a dear friend who passed on a few years ago at the age of 92 named Bill Hayes (no, not our dear FoH friend of the same name from Melbourne, Australia!). He was a dear man who knew the game inside out and gave me a wealth of knowledge for coaching youth teams at representative levels. He also knew the likes of players such as Ernie Toshack, Brian Booth et al (i.e ex-Australian Test players) and would often discuss things from the era he played in great detail. I miss those chats! As an aside, he kept wicket for Paddington in the Sydney first grade competition and his son, Warwick holds the current record for most runs at grade cricket level for St George. Warwick was close to going onto bigger things but was kept out of representative honours at NSW by Steve and Mark Waugh who were marginally in front of him. I think Bill would be in disbelief at Jos Buttler's wicket-keeping technique. Anyway...Bill once told me that at the first-class level Selectors invariably follow a golden rule for selection for batters and that is that they must score a 50 (or 100) every three innings on average. Let's see how true this maxim holds with the current conversion rates of the Australian batsmen below:

Joe Burns - 11 post-50 scores in 40 innings = 28%

Cameron Green - 1 post-50 score in 10 innings = 10%

Marcus Harris - 2 post-50 scores in 23 innings = 9%

Travis Head - 11 post-50 scores in 34 innings = 32%

Usman Khawaja - 22 post-50 scores in 77 innings = 29%

Marnus Labuschagne - 18 post-50 scores in 35 innings = 51%

Steve Smith - 59 post-50 scores in 142 innings = 42%

Matthew Wade - 9 post-50 scores in 63 innings = 14%

David Warner - 56 post-50 scores in 162 innings = 35%

Judging by those statistics above, I would say that my dear old mate Bill was 'on the money'. I think Marcus Harris should go now to be replaced by Usman Khawaja for the rest of the series but I think that the selectors will give him one more chance in the next test in Melbourne.

 

[Ken Gargett]

so only marnus, smith and warner get over the line! i suspect only root for the poms. 

i thought if they could stick to only three down overnight, they had a long shot at a draw. but if they lost stokes or especially root, no chance. 

not that the poms will want to hear this but i have thought for a long time coming into this series that they were outmatched in all areas. root is really their only top line bat and he has never really succeeded down here. butler is a good one day keeper. takes some screamers but you cannot then drop three sitters. that can cost you a series. they have no spinner. and their quicks are dominated  by two old blokes who have very rarely succeeded down here. why was that going to change? that leaves stokes. coming off injuries, absences, mental heath issues and coming on the hardest tour of all with absurd expectations. he was always going to struggle to a degree. and that said, while he is the guy who can create a great performance now and again, he hardly does it all the time. 

for me, the aussies were superior in every area and they are showing that. it happens. there have been times we've gone over there and no matter how hard we have tried, we have not been able to match them. 

adelaide was supposed to be the test that the poms were most likely to win. add in that we were missing both cummins and hazlewood, if they could not get over the line here, big trouble. and bar one or two sessions, they have not been close. 

it is looking like only rain will stop 5-0, although we do have a habit of dropping a test when we have won the series. they might get away with 4-1 but hard to see, unless root finally gets it together here. 

[Ken Gargett]

well just when you think England have crumbled and it will be all over before drinks first session, England step up and show character unimagined. but talk about a game of inches - carey has been superb with everything bar one shocker letting that ball go when it was his and his alone and would have seen the end of buttler for a pair. 

two to get in the last shortened session. odds still with australia but they'd be much less confident. 

[Webbo]

15 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

well just when you think England have crumbled and it will be all over before drinks first session, England step up and show character unimagined. but talk about a game of inches - carey has been superb with everything bar one shocker letting that ball go when it was his and his alone and would have seen the end of buttler for a pair. 

two to get in the last shortened session. odds still with australia but they'd be much less confident. 

"Its the hope that kills you"

[Ken Gargett]

2 hours ago, Webbo said:

"Its the hope that kills you"

well, to be honest, i was not hoping buttler would stand on his stumps, but i'll take it (even though he really should have been gone for a pair, i really felt for the guy when he was out. he tried so hard). 

personally, i think it was all a plot so we keep picking harris so we don't change a winning team. how does the bloke who averages four times him as an opener continually get left out? really awful selections. you can bet your life if harris was not from victoria or nsw, he'd have been gone a long time ago.